Always With You
by Rowena of Naxen
Summary: Trapped with the mage, once her lover, now her captor. Don't worry Violet, I will always be with you. // written for MoT's April challenge, prompt: Always.


**Disclaimer: Tammy owns Tortall stuffs. I'm just putting my characters there.**

**A/N: Written for the Men of Tortall forum's monthly writing challenge. Prompt for April: Always.**

**Warning: violence/death and implied rape**

At first Violet had been very flattered by the attention from the charming mage. She knew she was not as pretty as her older sister Lily and not as clever as her younger sister Chrys. Out of all the girls in the village he had singled her out. Her friends were very jealous. So were her sisters. For the first time her parents began to speak of a small dowry for her, in the event that she would be married. Never before had they even given it a second thought.

She relished the attention he lavished on her. He seemed like the sort of man who would have enjoyed the company of many girls but Vi was the only one in the town he called on. She wondered if he was serious, but when he talked of them travelling together she was sure he meant to marry her.

He spoke of a world beyond the tiny town she knew, and she loved it. He said that he wished to travel the world with her always at his side. She couldn't wait.

On that dewy fall morning he came to call in travelling clothes, and bade her hurry and dress so they could be far away by the time the village woke. She wrote her parents a hasty note, packed a bag, and in less than an hour they were far from the town she'd known all her life. Vi was certain he meant to elope with her. She was exhilarated.

That night she lay with him for the first time, certain that he meant to marry her when he presented her with a beautiful ring of emerald set in gold. She had never had _anything_ so fine! Vi promised him that she would wear it always, and he told her to be sure that she did.

It happened for the first time two mornings later. She was cleaning up from her lunch in the kitchen of the small house they had moved into in this new town. He assured her it was only a stop on the way, and she speculated that they were going to be married here before continuing their travels. It was similar to her old village, but different enough to make her satisfied with dreams of travel after they were married.

She heard him come in the door and started to go to greet him, to move from the back kitchen to the front of the house. She found she could not move. Her limbs weren't frozen but they would not respond when she attempted to walk away from the sink. Against her will she stayed in the kitchen, only able to hear the mage's hushed conversation with his companion.

She heard the other man leave, and immediately the inability to control her body left her. She rushed to her lover, sobbing over the experience, and he comforted her but told her it was not within his power to stop it.

It got worse. Sometimes she wasn't conscious while it was happening. She woke up an hour's walk from her house and didn't remember how she got there. She knew what the folks back home would call this: possession.

It got worse and worse. Every day was a living nightmare of stealing and smuggling.

At night he used her to pleasure himself and a different sort of fear took hold of her. He wouldn't listen when she told him no and covered her mouth with his when she began to scream.

The day she watched as her hand, holding an unfamiliar knife, slid across a sleeping throat and ended someone's life, she ran to her home and fell to her knees in front of him, begging him to let them return to her village or just leave this one. He took Violet's face between his two hands, forcing her to meet his eyes. They were dark, so dark – she had never noticed it before. Her mind began to blank, her limbs to remove themselves from her control.

She struggled to get away, move her body, but he wrenched her head back to face him, pulling her body off the ground by the base of her neck.

"You," she gasped with her last breath.

He smiled darkly. "Don't worry, Violet." He purred. "I will always be with you."

Her head fell back, her vision going dark until she was trapped in the black of her mind.

Trapped with the mage, once her lover, now her captor.

_Don't worry, Violet. I will _always_ be with you._

**Check out Men of Tortall's monthly writing prompts! I warned you about the depressing-ness of this one (I feel like I'm channeling Kate). Leave a review and let me know what you think!**


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